Friday, December 12, 2008

No Whore Like An Old Whore Like Harper

I think Brian Mulroney was referring to Bryce Macasey when he used the line, "there's no whore like an old whore" to describe the Trudeau cabinet minister's appointment to Ambassador to Portugal by John Turner as he was leaving office.

Today's Old Whores will be handpicked by the Whore-in-Chief, Stephen Harper. Exploiting the reprieve granted him by Governor-General Jean when she granted Harper's "save my ass" demand that parliament be prorogued, our Furious Leader has decided to slather on his rouge and eyeliner and fill all 18-senate vacancies while the Commons is under regal lockdown.

We owe Michaelle Jean a real vote of thanks for allowing Harper to pull this scam. She could have - and damned well should have - at least made the prorogation conditional upon no appointments, no pillaging of parliamentary privilege. It speaks volumes for the legitimacy of her act that she didn't. From the Toronto Star:

Constitutional scholar Desmond Morton called the move a scandal in view of the precarious position of Harper's minority government."He has the power to do it, but he shouldn't have the gall," said Morton, a professor emeritus at McGill University.

"I think it's more in keeping with the principles of parliamentary democracy that a potentially lame-duck administration should not make appointments," said constitutional scholar Ned Franks.

If the government is looking to flog off government assets to help get us through the rough times ahead, a good place to begin would be Rideau Hall.

8 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Boy...I've only heard this 'stack the senate' crap for 30 years. Whats funny is, when the Libs do it the Cons whine...when the Cons do it the Libs whine...all that's missing is Scrapy-do chasing Iggy and Harpo in and out of the doors of that long hallway. Although its now official...Stephen Harper is now no different then Trudeau, Mulroney and Chretien...lie lie lie lie lie lie!!! billg

We'll see about stacking when Harper appoints them. If he doesn't go "tri-party", THEN he is really breaking with tradition. Chretien and Martin appointed ALL parties. So did Trudeau.

I have a feeling Harper will appoint MOSTLY Cons. That wouldn't be a surprise, considering he's never worked any job that wasn't a political patronage gig himself. He's been nothing but a partisan "hack" his entire life.

And the flogging of assets - Taxpayers' assets? He will sell them to his Conservative friends, just like Mulroney did when he privatized. Just like Grant Devine did when he privatized 1/2 of Saskatchewan...

It's unfortunate that Jack Granatstein is what passes for a fine intellectual mind by the press and public, and that we rarely hear from real intellectual heavy weights like Desmond Morton and Ned Franks.

As for the GG's first call to do something that takes more thought than just dropping a writ or reading a government written throne speech, she really did a pathetic job. The decision to prorogue will be considered questionable at best. The decision to not apply limitations to the PM's powers under such a contentious request is beyond any justification.

Yeah, and her integrity and unbiased demeanor is reflected by her actions. She is truly a diplomat - and very fair and balanced.

When Liberals made appointments, they always looked at merit. As someone who has been involved in the process (been asked questions about, or to find out about people in the community), I can tell you that we have been very concerned about merit all along.